The Format War Continues

Yesterday, Engadget reported that Toshiba was finally becoming vocal about the format war. For a while now there’s been news that the Blu-ray Disc Association (members include Sony, Samsung, Apple, as well as a bunch of others) has been claiming victory in the war. It has seemed, however, that their claims weren’t exactly definite. And finally Toshiba Deputy General manager of HD DVD, Olivier Van Wynendaele, has come out saying that the Blu-ray claims are “propaganda.” He also disputed the figures that the Blu-ray camp tout, that Blu-ray discs are out selling HD DVD 3:1.

I for one am pretty happy that someone is finally taking a stand against these fairly outrageous claims. As the news of these figures has been coming out, it has been a question all along, if the numbers are valid. Lots of speculation says that the count of Blu-ray players is being augmented by the sales of Sony’s PS3. This is understandable, as the PS3 is indeed a Blu-ray player, however, it has also been speculated that the Blu-ray Disc Association is counting PS3 BRD pack-in Taladega Nights, as part of the disc sales. In addition to this, it even sounds like they’re counting BRD vouchers that are also included in PS3 sales. These vouchers don’t even guarantee that the consumer is going to go out and get a movie, although it seems pretty likely. But, the question here is: without these vouchers would most PS3 owners be clamoring to get movies on Blu-ray just yet?

Wynendaele also brings up some rather damning figures about standalone player sales. He points out that Toshiba has sold 200,000 HD DVD players in the US, while there have only been 30,000 standalone Blu-ray players sold. It’s pretty hard to deny that in this case, HD DVD is absolutely stomping the competition.

Even further, Wynendaele asserts, that in order to thwart the competition, Toshiba is planning to undercut Blu-ray player prices. Last month I posted that Sony had just announced a low-end Blu-ray player, which would go for only $600, in comparison to the original $999. Well, just today, Toshiba announced price cuts for their HD DVD players (as reported by Engadget). The least expensive player will now carry an MSRP of only $399, a $100 price cut. Also, the higher end models the A20 and XA2, will be going for $499 and $799 respectively. This price cut seems to fall right into place with what the Toshiba representative had to say.

It’s hard for me to say just which format I prefer. I seem to be learning towards HD DVD, but my computer manufacturer of choice, Apple, is behind the competition. I just find it hard to get behind the format, especially when it seems that the backing companies are constantly making press releases claiming victory, when the war is far from over.